Posts Tagged ‘fatherhood’

“I want to have your babies.” I had never said that to anyone before. I’d thought it, once, with S. I’d looked at him and his security and handsomeness and Jewishness and what I thought he’d be capable of, parentingwise. With J. it was more complicated. It wasn’t, “You’d be a perfect dad,” but rather, “I want to have your babies because I love you and think we’re a good team.” It was, to some degree, “I think I could fill in the gaps.” It was, “I want to try to resurrect my own father.” It was so many things all at once, in that one thought.

Most of all, for me, it wasn’t just, “I want babies ASAP.” It wasn’t, “I want babies, generally,” as some pleasant kind of acquisition, like, “I want chocolate.” It was, “I want your babies, babies that only you and I in all the universe could make together.” I wondered what they would be like, how quirky and smart and stubborn and adorable they would be. I wondered what religion, if any, they would be, which grandparents they’d be like.

He never said anything back (this was via email), and I wondered if he ever realized how big a statement it was for me, how much it meant to go there, to explicitly say it. Right before we broke up, like the day before, he started a sentence with, “If we have kids someday…” and it was so weird to hear that. Of course, it ended with, “can we make them deaf/mute?” or something like that. It was a joke but it also wasn’t; I think we could have pushed to make that happen, but I don’t think that was ultimately in the cards for us. There’s more, but it’s more about me and how I was raised, what was there and what was missing, and what I don’t want to replicate for my kids.

It’s a huge thing to ponder, so huge that sometimes I just resign myself to going it alone. There is a time factor, since I am almost 33 1/2, and feel that my chances slipping away each day. I know technically that’s not true, but it feels like it, like I waited way too long to even start thinking about this. Moreso, my grandparents are old. They are 86 (my grandmother) and 85 (my grandfather) – on different sides of my family. I like to think they will live forever, because I don’t know what I would do without them, but I know they won’t, and more than them seeing a book of mine on the shelves or being generically proud of me or whatever it is I want from them, I want them to meet my kids. I want them to hold them and see them and know them, even if for a short time. I want them to know I’m going to be a good mom. I want my babies to know, even if just by touch, these amazing people who are such a big part of me

So, yeah, no pressure or anything. I don’t mean to look at everyone I date in such terms but I’m not gonna lie: I do. I appreciate certain qualities and values that are about so much more than how a person fucks me. It so happens that my current guy, well, he’s great in both departments. Again, I have no idea if he wants to have kids, let alone with me, but I’m talking about what I see in him and just what I look for when I say those six words. If I do. Because for me it’s about much more than love. I loved J., still do, but I don’t know that he would have been a good match for me in parenting. I want someone who comes to it with as much need as I do. Not just enthusiasm or acceptance, but a need from somewhere deep inside to be a parent. To have that bond, a bond that is separate and apart from me. A bond that is special, theirs. It’s little things, little actions, that make me smile, that make me suspect they would be good at all the caretaking that would be involved – caretaking of me and our kids. As much as I desire being a mom, I so often feel like there is a level of research and knowledge and minutiae to it that has nothing to do with, well, the reasons I want to have kids. It’s like a secret parent language and I wonder if I will ever learn it.